Once famed as an industrial powerhouse that produced some of the world's finest steel, Rotherham is now known as the epicentre of the UK grooming scandal, leaving the town angry, ashamed and needing answers.

The issue of UK grooming gangs was again thrust into the spotlight when tech billionaire Elon Musk launched incendiary attacks on his X platform against the UK government for resisting calls for a new national inquiry.

Over the course of several decades, men of mostly South Asian origin in various English towns are suspected of abusing thousands of mostly white girls from working class families, often from troubled homes. More than 100 people have been convicted of the crimes.

"Of course it's still going on -- I think it's going on across every town, every city in the UK," Jayne Senior, an early whistleblower about the problem, told AFP.

Senior is a former manager at Risky Business, a youth project set up in 1997 by the local authority in Rotherham, where an estimated 1,400 girls fell prey to the gangs.

Her group helped almost 2,000 girls and boys at risk of being groomed, and she lodged a successful complaint against police for failing to act on evidence she........

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